Bus trip leads San Diegan to siblings she never knew

At age 77, the Del Cerro widow was recently reunited with a brother and sister she never knew she had. It never would have happened had she not signed up for a church bus trip to a gospel music event in Phoenix, Ariz. this spring.

Totey knew she had been adopted as an infant from a home for unwed mothers in Mesa, Ariz. She also knew her birth mother’s maiden name. But it was the trip that really launched her search for possible living relatives.

She soon discovered she has a younger brother, Michael Brannon, 69, and a sister, Roberta Mello, 75, still living in Mesa. She called and introduced herself. “Neither knew I existed,” she says. But logistics prevented a reunion during her short time in Phoenix.

Then she got word that the tour group had to relocate from its original hotel to one about 30 miles away — in Mesa. It was on the same street and only three blocks from her brother’s office and one block from where she was born.

When they finally met, she was told she is a carbon image of the mother she’d never seen. This past weekend her siblings came to San Diego to meet three of her four adult children and their families.

“It was wonderful,” said Totey. “I grew up as an only child, and I had always wanted a sister. How we have to start building memories from here.”